I’m the kind of girl whose headphones get lost in her hair. The one who stubs her toe on the same corner of her apartment weekly and each time screams out completely unwarranted obscenities that curse everyone from mothers to puppies. The girl that listens to the Rihanna album daily and doesn’t want to imagine a world where she’ll get sick of it. The one that didn’t eat anything for a couple hours and called it a “cleanse.” My claim to fame is that I’m the girl whose hair caught on fire during the best man’s speech at my cousin’s wedding reception. (Yes, obscenities should be assumed in that situation, and no they weren’t appreciated my very extended, very large Indian family). Sure, I am a complete mess, but I am more than the girl on your arm.

Photo By Kaitlyn Clement

I’ll take a Whiskey Coke over a Vodka Tonic, a High Life over a pint of Blue Moon, a pair of cutoffs over a cute dress any day. I have yet to learn how to uncross my legs. I still laugh at jokes about boobs, farting, and people who fall. I also make a shameless amount of knock knock jokes. I’m still under the impression that there’s time to change my entire life course and become a zookeeper. Most girls love animals and children, whereas I, I only love animals, children are more meh for me. Last weekend, at a four-year old’s birthday party, I freaked out when the kids had to eat lunch simply because I could have the bouncy house all to myself and you know what? The pathetically tiny entrance into said bouncy house didn’t not even slightly discourage me from crawling my way through and spending a solid 20 minutes bouncing up and down and screaming “wee” to myself. No, but really.

When somebody types an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, I don’t imagine them screaming, but instead I imagine them jumping. I often find myself buying the same nail polish color over and over again without realizing that I already own like at least four bottles of the exact same brand and color. I have no idea where my life is going and for the first time in my life, I’m actually okay with it.

This is me. This is what I do, what I say, what I embarrass myself over, what I sometimes wish I could change about myself, what I promise will hopefully never change about me, from my occasional nail-biting to my Real Housewives fascination, for better or worse, here I am. But make no mistake, I’m clever, I’m intuitive, I’m strong, I’m relentless, I’m stubborn, but most of all, I’m me.